“You mean my all time favorite, most comfortable sweater in the whole wide world? The one I wear all the time?”

“Yes!” Finality ruled her voice.

“I love that sweater almost as much as I love you. I’ve worn it for years. What’s wrong with my keeping it?”

She took it from me and looked at it critically. “It’s spotted, stretched out of shape and looks downright shabby.”

“Do you mean my wearing it makes me look like a bum?”

“Well, I wouldn’t go quite that far. But you do have all those beautiful sweaters in your bureau. The ones I’ve given you for your birthday and Christmas. You hardly wear any of them.”

“Good! I’ll hang onto it then.”

She sighed. “As long as you don’t wear it when we’re out or if we have company.”

“Maybe you’d like to send Ralph Lauren an e mail and tell him that after nearly twenty years of dedicated service your husband’s favorite blue sweater appears dreary and unbecoming.”

“Why on earth would I do something like that?”

“I thought perhaps you’d touch his heart, evoke sufficient sentiment so he’d have someone from his firm rummage through discontinued stock and send me another one.”

I looked at my old blue cotton sweater. It looked back at me resigned to the fate that happens to most men’s clothing when a wife decides its time to break up such a perfect union and pitch whatever garment in question into a brown paper sack labeled thrift shop, never to be seen, again.

“Why not just e mail him yourself?”

“And say what? Dear Ralph, my wife feels my old blue cotton sweater is tattered and disheveled and make me look like a reprobate. Do you think he’d care? He’d just write it off to planned obsolescence. But if you wrote him, pleaded with him and deeply touched his humanitarian nature then I might stand a chance.”

“Oh go ahead and keep it. If it means that much to you.”

“Thank you. It’s not like I tell you what to wear when we’re going out to dinner or when we have company over.”

“What do you mean? You do all the time. You’re subtle comments about something making me look like I gained weight or worse appear maternally. What would you call that?”

“Speaking the truth!” I ventured. “I do feel it’s only appropriate to warn you when you wear something that makes you for instance appear older.”

“What do I wear that makes me look older?” She asked pointedly.

“Nothing comes to mind immediately, but believe me I’ll let you know the moment I notice something that does.”

We had been through a lot, me and my old blue cotton sweater with the little red embroidered polo player menacingly waving his mallet: blizzards, thunderstorms, even late spring frosts. It was always there for me, always comfortable regardless what kind of shirt or jacket I might wear. To me this demonstrated unceasing loyalty. With resignation I set it aside.

"I'll give it up," I said reluctantly, "even though I will miss it terribly."

She looked at me, sighed and shook her head. Then she grinned. “I know you love it, and I really think you ought to keep it, otherwise I’ll never hear the end of it." She paused, "However," She went on, "those beat up loafers you haven’t worn in years, and that frayed leather belt, and that green corduroy jacket that’s falling apart….”